


Out of Tune

by pencevprep



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:10:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3567458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pencevprep/pseuds/pencevprep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank loved the Smashing Pumpkins, he really did. After a long day of work though, the last thing he wanted to hear was his neighbor playing 1979 for the third time this week.  Sure, they weren’t bad, but their guitar was so out of tune, it hurt Frank to just listen and not do anything to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Tune

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So this is my first fic in years, and my first ever Frerard fic. I'm a bit rusty on coming up with ideas, so this is a prompt from awful-aus.tumblr.com. It's not very dramatic, but I hope you enjoy!

Frank loved the Smashing Pumpkins, he really did. After a long day of work though, the last thing he wanted to hear was his neighbor playing 1979 for the third time this week. Sure, they weren’t bad, but their guitar was so out of tune, it hurt Frank to just listen and not do anything to help.  
  
Sighing, Frank pushed himself off his couch and dragged his feet the entire thirty paces it took to get from his apartment to the one directly across from him. He stood outside the door, hesitating. He’d never met this neighbor before, what if they got angry over his intrusion? Just as he was about to convince himself to turn right back around and go home to enjoy a beer and shitty TV, a particularly sour note resounded from behind the door. Frank knew he couldn’t just let this poor person suffer with that guitar any longer, not when it sounded that bad.  
  
Sucking in a deep breath, Frank knocked on the door. The guitar quickly cut off, and he could hear mumbling. The door opened, and Frank let out his breath.  
  
It turns out this mystery neighbor is a guy, Frank thought, and a really hot one at that. He had longer black hair, incredibly pale skin, and ridiculously bright hazel eyes. His face was screwed up in a concerned expression, his lower lip caught between his teeth.  
  
“Hey, can I help you?” he asked. Frank was shaken from his thoughts by the nasal sound of his voice.  
  
“Oh, uh yeah. I’m Frank- I live in the apartment across from you,” Frank managed to stutter out before the guy interrupted him.  
  
“Shit, do you need me to be quiet with the guitar? I can’t get another noise complaint, I swear to god, the landlord is gonna kick me out if someone else bitches.”  
  
Frank let out a laugh. He wasn’t the only one that had been serenaded by this guy’s playing then. “No, I actually wanted to offer to tune your guitar for you. I love the Smashing Pumpkins, but you are destroying them with that guitar.”  
  
“Oh man, that would be awesome! I’ve been trying to learn how to play, and I got this thing from a consignment shop, but I honestly have no idea how to do anything with it. I’m Gerard, by the way, come on in!” Gerard opened the door wider, allowing Frank to pass through. “Sorry about the mess, I wasn’t expecting company,” Gerard said.  
  
The apartment had the same layout as Frank’s but where his was clean, Gerard’s was covered in clutter and art and smelled of coffee. There were stacks of books, comics upon closer look, and papers covered the floor sporadically, depicting crumpled monsters and bloodied creatures. Frank had the urge to pick up the pages and look through them until they made sense, but Gerard got his attention again as they walked into the center of the living room.  
  
“So here’s the guitar. You’re doing me such a huge favor with this, can I make you some dinner to say thanks?”  
  
Frank was never one to say no to food, especially when he didn’t have to cook it himself, “That’d be rad, only thing is I’m vegetarian. It’s cool if you don’t want to like change what you were going to make to accommodate that.”  
  
Gerard gave a small smile, “No, I was actually going to make some pasta. I’m not much a chef so I tend to stay away from meats. Better to miss some proteins than to get food poisoning because I can’t tell when something’s raw- had to learn that one the hard way.”  
  
Frank laughed, “Oh man, that must’ve been rough.”  
  
With a grimace and shudder at the memory, Gerard said, “Trust me, it was. Took me months to trust chicken again. I’m gonna go throw the pasta and sauce on real quick, so just make yourself comfortable.”  
  
Frank nodded, and Gerard headed towards the kitchen. It was a fairly open floor plan, so they could see each other the entire time, which was something Frank was not opposed to. He’d been tuning guitars since he was a kid, so there was no real need for him to pay close attention to what he was doing. Frank adjusted the tuning pegs, giving an occasional strum to make sure each note sounded right. Mainly though, he watched Gerard cook. It was interesting, the way he moved around his kitchen. He looked comfortable and yet out of place at the same time. He knew where everything was, but still managed to look lost, as if he was waiting for someone to walk in and take over the cooking. Gerard began humming as he stirred the boiling pasta, and Frank smiled as he realized the tune was that of 1979.  
  
Frank finished tuning the guitar and set it back down on the couch where Gerard had left it. He walked into the kitchen and said, “The guitar’s all set. It should sound much better now, so hopefully no more noise complaints.” The last part was said with a slight smirk.  
  
Gerard flicked Frank’s arm, “Hey, not all of us just know how to work instruments!”  
  
Frank raised his hands in surrender, “Careful, you might not want to damage the guy that can tune your guitar for you.”  
  
Gerard rolled his eyes and huffed, “You’re gonna hold this over me for the rest of my life now, aren’t you?”  
  
Frank didn’t respond, giving a smile instead. He wasn’t about to say it out loud, but he sure as hell was excited that Gerard assumed they would be in contact for the rest of their lives.  
  
Gerard turned the pasta off and drained it in the sink before adding the sauce. “Can you grab two bowls? They’re in the cabinet above you and to the left.”  
  
“Sure thing,” Frank found the bowls. The only problem was that they were on the highest shelf, and just out of reach. In his own apartment, that shelf had always remained empty because he could never reach it without the aid of a chair or climbing on the counter like a kid. He tried going onto his tippy toes to reach them, and although he was able to grasp the edge of the shelf, he couldn’t get high enough to grab the bowls.  
  
Gerard looked over and saw Frank stretching as far as he could and laughed, loud, at his struggle. “What’s the matter shorty, do you need a foot stool?”  
  
Frank flushed, “Shut up, it’s not my fault you put things on this shelf. It’s ridiculously high.”  
  
“Uh huh,” was all Gerard had to say to that. He walked over to the cabinet and grabbed the bowls with ease, stretching right over Frank.  
  
While Frank wasn’t opposed to it, he certainly wasn’t expecting a faceful of Gerard’s chest. There was a slight gap between them, but it was small, and Gerard was close enough that Frank could smell a slight hint of coconut wafting from him.  
  
Gerard filled the bowls equally, and put them on the counter. He walked over to the fridge and asked, “What do you want to drink? I have Coke, iced tea, water, and a few other things.”  
  
“Coke is good.”  
  
Gerard grabbed two cans and then one of the bowls of pasta, “We’re gonna have to eat on the couch, my table is covered in sketches, and I can’t risk getting sauce on them.”  
  
“No problem. What are they for? I saw a few of them, and they looked really cool.”  
  
They sat down on the rather small sofa, moving the guitar to the floor. There were only two cushions- it was more of a loveseat than a couch, really- but it was comfortable.  
  
Flushing slightly, Gerard said, “I’m working on a comic book. I have an internship at Dark Horse right now, so I’m hoping I can just pitch my idea before it ends.”  
  
“No way, that’s awesome! I love their stuff, you have to let me look at some of your ideas soon!”  
  
Gerard smiled, “Yeah, that would be cool. I’ve been stuck on this one part, and I could really use some input from a new perspective. I usually bounce things off my brother, but he’s giving me bogus suggestions for this. He just keeps telling me to turn all the characters into zombies, which would be totally unrealistic for the plot. Enough about that though, what do you do?”  
  
Frank took a bite of pasta before answering, “I’m in a band, but I also work at the record store on Queen Street. You might actually want to check it out, I think we just got a new, mint condition vinyl of the Pumpkins.”  
  
“Oh yeah, I know that place! I’ll definitely have to stop by and check that record out. Do you want to watch some TV while we eat?”  
  
“Sweet! And sure, I think there’s a shitty Syfy movie marathon on tonight. All the Lake Placids if I’m not mistaken.”  
  
“Oh man, those are the best for a good laugh! The special effects are so bad, I swear, I could make better giant gators than them,” Gerard stated with a head shake. He turned the television on and flipped through the channels until he found Syfy. The second of the series was just starting, and the two began watching intently and eating, laughing when the giant gators appeared and the townspeople made terrible decisions.  
  
Before Frank knew it, the movie was ending. Gerard grabbed the bowls and brought them to the kitchen, placing them in the sink. Frank stood up too, about ready to head home and get out of his neighbor’s hair.  
  
“What’re you doing, Frank?” Gerard asked.  
  
“I was gonna head home. Don’t want to overstay my welcome, especially since I already invited myself over.”  
  
“Dude, you can’t leave now! We have to watch the rest of these movies,” Gerard exclaimed.  
  
Frank couldn’t find it in himself to be a normal person and fight his desire to hang out with Gerard longer. “Well, if you insist,” He said with a small smile.  
  
Frank sat back down on his side of the couch. Gerard joined him, sitting more towards the center than the side he was originally on. The third movie started, and the two launched back into their commentary. Soon though, the exhaustion that had previously filled Frank caught back up, and he drifted off. He managed to slowly fall sideways, towards the center, until he was stopped by Gerard. His head ended up in Gerard’s lap, and Gerard couldn’t bear to wake him up, even when the movie ended, and the fourth began. Resigning himself to a night on the couch as a human pillow, Gerard grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over Frank. Soon enough, he too was asleep.

  


Frank woke up with a crick in his neck and an overheated face. Groaning, he sat up and rubbed his eyes. Why the hell was his neck so sore? Looking around, Frank realized he wasn’t in his bedroom, and his cute neighbor was asleep next to him with a small drool spot on his shorts. So that’s what Frank was using as a pillow.  
  
Feeling guilty about the accidental sleepover, Frank began to quietly get up. He wasn’t sneaky enough though, because Gerard woke up once Frank shifted away.  
  
He let out a pained moan and he stretched out, “God my neck hurts.”  
  
Guilt rising even more, Frank said, “Shit, sorry about passing out on you last night. You should’ve just woken me up so you could’ve been comfortable.”  
  
Still partially asleep, Gerard said, “I’m fine with a sore neck if it means a cute boy fell asleep on me.”  
  
Frank was silent, a little shocked and very relieved at Gerard’s admission. He had a chance with him! He did a mental victory dance, feeling a whole lot better about the situation.  
  
Gerard mistook his silence for something else, “Oh god, I’m sorry. I just- I thought you were into me? I just fucked this up-”  
  
Frank stopped his internal celebration and quickly said, “No! I am! I’m definitely into you, I just wasn’t expecting you to be so blunt.”  
  
Gerard let out a sigh of relief, “Haven’t had coffee yet, I’m out of it as hell in the morning. I don’t really have a filter right now, which is probably bad, but I can’t be bothered to give a damn, because again, I haven’t had coffee. Do you want to make me a cup of coffee?” Gerard said the last part with a smile.  
  
Frank was unable to even think of saying no, and headed over to the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later, two cups of coffee in hand. He passed one over to Gerard and sat down to drink his own. Soon, too soon really, Frank realized he needed to get ready for work.  
“Hey, Gerard, I have to leave for work. I have a show tonight though, if you want to come? We’re not great, but it’s one of the biggest ones we’ve booked yet. I can put you on the list,” Frank rambled.  
  
“I’d love to go, Frank. Text me the details,” Gerard snatched a marker off the floor and took Frank’s arm in his hand. “Oh. I guess I’ll write my number on your hand then, since you probably won’t be able to find it in between all your tattoos. Should’ve thought of that before.”  
Frank laughed at Gerard’s dorkiness as he took his hand instead. The digits were written quickly, and Frank committed them to memory in case they wore off before he could enter them into his phone. He stood back up, brought his empty coffee cup to the kitchen, and then headed over to Gerard’s front door.  
  
“See you later, Gerard,” Frank said with a smile, and a flare of nerves over the fact that Gerard would be at his show.  
  
Gerard turned around to lazily say goodbye without moving further from the couch, “Later, Frankie! Don’t forget to tell me when and where, otherwise I’ll have to stay home and risk annoying the old people down the hall with my poor guitar playing.”  
  
“You’re not bad man, you were just out of tune!” Frank protested. “I can teach you some more though, if you want.”  
  
“I’d like that. You’d better get going though, if you don’t want to be late for work.”  
  
Cursing, Frank realized Gerard was right. He only had twenty minutes to get ready and get to the store. “Seriously bye now, Gerard. If I get fired, it’s your fault!”  
  
“Whatever you say, Frank,” Gerard rolled his eyes at Frank’s dramatics as his front door was nearly slammed shut. He really hoped the neighbors could put up with him "learning" more of the guitar because Gerard was absolutely certain he would be a terrible student with Frank as his teacher.


End file.
